Finding myself one of the people, I resolved to enjoy a nobody’s share of the sight-seeing. Some English friends whom I found in the same predicament, and who assured me I had lost nothing worth a guinea to see, volunteered to accompany me into the Park, where they thought it not unlikely the most exciting scenes of the day would come off. So then, we elbowed and pushed our progress into the Park, and were elbowed and pushed in return quite as much as we cared to be. At last, it became impossible to fight it out three abreast, and we agreed to “divide and conquer.” The last I saw of my friends, one was here and the other there, amid a crowd of hats and faces swaying about, with exclamations and entreaties in behalf of coats and shins, and toes, and umbrellas. We looked laughing adieus, and saw each other no more. At length I found myself in the line of the Queen’s procession, and hired a convenient standing-place to see her progress to the Palace. On she came at last, preceded by those superb horse-guards, who dashed magnificently through the crowd, and were themselves the finest military spectacle I had ever beheld. Several of the Court carriages followed, one containing the Crown-Prince of Prussia; and then came the Queen’s, distinguished by many horses, coachmen, and footmen; the coach itself glittering with gold; the horses splendidly caparisoned; and the servants in showy liveries, with powdered hair, cocked-hats, and immense nosegays thrust into their bosoms. The cockneys, however, had expected to see the coronation coach, and were accordingly much disappointed with this modicum of show. Then followed more horse-guards, kicking up the gravel into the faces of the plebeians, and sinking, with their haunches to the earth, as their riders spurred them into proud prancings and curvettings, as if to intimate that the very beasts knew they were attending the Sovereign of many Empires to a festival of all nations. Whew! how they dashed along! and soon a discharge of artillery announced her arrival at the Palace; nor was it long before another discharge of the guns proclaimed the ceremony concluded, and the Great Exhibition opened. Everybody looked happy and contented; and everybody, with wife and children in the bargain, appeared to be on the spot.